Gujarat govt silent on Raghavan's trips abroad

The Gujarat government on Thursday was silent on the controversy that it had allegedly sponsored foreign trips of SIT chief RK Raghavan, whose final report on the Gulberg society massacre had exonerated chief minister Narendra Modi of all charges on his reported role in the incident.

Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia has filed an application under the RTI Act, seeking details of the expenses borne by the state government on the SC-appointed SIT and also on the amounts spent on the foreign travel of Raghavan, who was earlier director of the CBI.

Modhwadia has, however, not received any reply from the government because the General Administrative Department (GAD), headed by Modi, has refused to divulge the details while Gujarat chief information commissioner D Rajgopalan, who is related to Raghavan through marriage, has not passed any order on the appeal pending before his organisation.

"I have not received any information, so it is evident that the Modi government wants to hide something," Modhwadia said.

It has been reported that Raghavan goes to London frequently because his son is working for an investment bank there. "He goes to London very often but I don't know if those trips are or were sponsored by the Gujarat government," a senior Gujarat cadre IAS official who belongs to Tamil Nadu said.

Rajgopalan was chief secretary to the Gujarat government in 2009-10, when the SIT was probing the Gujarat riots of 2002.

The former chief secretary, who is considered very close to Modi, was given three months' extension when he retired in 2010. "The CM himself had gone to meet Union home minister P Chidambaram to clear the Rajgopalan's extension," a Gujarat government official said.

After he retired, he was made chairman of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd with the rank of cabinet minister, and subsequently chief commissioner, RTI, Gujarat, for three years. Despite several attempts Rajgopalan or Raghavan couldn't be reached for comments.